Shabbat in Jerusalem

Shabbat in Jerusalem

Belated Shabbat Shalom, blog readers! Today we woke up late “for Shabbat,” and it was lovely. Next went to the park and did morning services, but in a way that I’d never though of before – with yoga. Avi and Steph led the yoga exercises, which were a great and relaxing compliment to our prayers. After lunch, we went the Old City in Jerusalem and to the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish prayer site. The Old City is beautiful. It is separated into 4 quarters for the four different cultes who declare Jerusalem their holiest place. It’s sad to know that the beautiful city is separated solely by religion, but c’est la vie. The Western Wall in the Jewish Quarter is huge; many of us wrote down prayers and put them in the cracks in the wall, among the millions which were already there. To conclude shabbat, we visited Peppi’s apartment where we talked and ate Peppi’s choice of Israeli food (I loved the guacamole). In the evening, we first had a Havdalah service on the street in front of the hotel. This may sound odd to some, but nobody even batted an eye as we sung the prayers in the Jewish State. We then went to the market on Ben Yehuda Street, which was lined with performers, artists, and shops which had opened since the end of Shabbat. Speaking of which, the streets of Jerusalem had been nearly empty all day prior to 8p.m. – which is the opposite of what Cincinnati looks like on a Saturday. Tomorrow we leave Jerusalem, and I’m definitely going to miss it, but it’s good thing we are coming back to celebate Yom HaAtzmaut!